About Me: I paint watercolors of Maine, where I've lived since 1992, in the coastal town of Rockland, home of the Maine Lobster Festival. The art classes in painting and drawing that I give for children and adults also keep me busy . In summer I offer short workshops on how to paint a Maine lighthouse among other Maine subjects. My art also includes whimsical animal drawings and paintings and coloring pages.
www.catinkacards.com

For years I have made my cards by color laser copies of my paintings which I cut out and paste onto blank cards. Yes, this is labor intensive, but it was doable up to a point (and actually cost effective) and did not require much upfront cost.

Now comes the job of scanning all those images to create digital files. There is an onus to having to create a digital file though. If it is to be 'the stand-in' for the art, in my mind there is a greater responsibility to do the scan 'right'. It is not the same as standing at the copier in the copy shop and scanning/copying images. There, my attitude is always "as long as it looks good I'm ok with it." I don't care if it comes out differently the next time around. That would just be a different version of the art. (Having worked for several years at a New York City printing plant I view print production from the printshop's perspective rather than the artist/designer's view. The artist/designers rarely seemed to have realistic or even reasonable expectations of what was possible in printing.)

All things in due time. I will try to work regularly one small step at a time at the dreaded scanning. And then I will have more images in my store. (and yes, I will reuse images by offering them as blanks and by changing the inside verse/text).

I found with just my two images (as of this writing) I really enjoyed whipping up a little poem for the inside. I'm also thrilled at having a way to offer ecards to people. And, ecards can be a great marketing tool in several ways - whether one lets people use one's images for this or one sends out ecards as the creator of the ecard. (GCU's ecards come right in the email rather than only as a link to the ecard.) I've always wanted a way to offer my images as ecards. It means one's images are getting out there. And that is a great pleasure to me. That's why I love offering my free coloring pages. I don't make money from that, but I get most of my traffic from it. That is the fun of it.

Hello and Welcome to CatinkaCards! Illustrations by Catinka Knoth of whimsical animals, and Maine watercolors of lighthouses, coastal scenes, gardens and floral landscapes, farm animals and more to come. Visit my website at www.catinkacards.com where you will also find free animal coloring pages and watercolor lessons.